


jersey twenty-four.

by dylaesthetics



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 6a, Angst, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Lydia's POV, Mutual Pining, One Shot, Sharing a Bed, Stydia, remembering stiles, stiles returns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:02:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26713423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dylaesthetics/pseuds/dylaesthetics
Summary: “Please don’t ever leave me again.” her eyes were watery when she looked down, remembering how the hole in her chest had hurt for every moment in the past couple months. After every cut she’d had to seal shut, that ache was like no other.Stiles moved a finger to her eyes and picked her head up, brushing the tear away and holding her cheek softly. Lydia looked back up, seeing his face only inches from her. Staring at her as in asking for permission. Yet he didn’t need one._OR Lydia remembers Stiles when smelling his jersey.
Relationships: Lydia Martin/Stiles Stilinski
Kudos: 77





	jersey twenty-four.

What used to be the door to Stiles’ room now was a massive hole in the wall. 

Noah was already inside by the time Lydia could pull herself together to cross the threshold and walk past the wall she’d peeled the wallpaper off not long ago, angering Claudia. The wall she’d broken down against, trying to remember the reason her soul didn’t feel whole.

“You knew about it, didn’t you?” Noah whispered when Lydia froze in the middle of the shabby, empty, gloomy room. “God, it was on the blueprints. It was here when we moved in. That was 18 years ago.”

But when Lydia turned around, the room was no longer empty. Instead, a bed with blue sheets she recognized from a distant memory occupied the far corner. As she turned to the windows, she spotted a glass board in the middle of the room, clean from any clues. A desk with a chair.

“Lydia? What is it?” Noah interrupted her investigation and she swung back around.

Except she could no longer see the bed, neither the desk nor the board at the corner of her eyes.

“Nothing,” Lydia admitted, despite being absolutely certain that this time she hadn’t imagined anything. Stiles’ belongings had been there, a second ago. His room had come back to life for a moment. Stiles _was_ real.

“I don’t understand how you knew this was here.”

A pull. The second she’d entered the Stilinski household months ago to chat to Noah and Claudia, she simply knew. She felt it. 

_You knew it. You felt it._ A voice she hadn’t heard in what felt like a lifetime sounded in her mind. Like a promise. 

“If you want to discuss the possibility that I had a son..” Noah wouldn’t let her think. “I’m listening.”

She nodded barely noticeably, rushing to shut the door behind them.

And then, Lydia explained everything. The abandoned town. Lenore and her conjured up drowned son. Banshees left behind after the wild hunt. Still, Noah had more questions.

“She was the only one left. She had to fill a void. So she filled it with her son.”

“And you saw this kid.” Noah’s tone wasn’t convincing.

“We all did. He was real. He was there. But..”

“But what?”

“She was there when everybody was taken.” Lydia swallowed, fear taking over her body. That could be her. If the wild hunt wins, that _will_ be her. “She saw it happen. But she didn’t want to believe it. She wanted to believe in her son.”

Noah was beginning to suspect the reasoning behind Lydia’s story. Scepticism exposed in his dark eyes.

“What are you trying to say?” Noah spoke quietly but with passion. This is how Lydia remembered him from years ago when he tried to face the supernatural like an investigation, with meaning and reason. “You think Claudia is not real? You think I made up a phantom wife?”

Lydia gulped, knowing her following words aren’t meant for just the sheriff. “You’re afraid to remember him.” 

Lydia _was_ afraid to remember Stiles. Not because she didn’t want to. The hole in her chest was growing bigger by the second, with each memory of Stiles that popped up in her mind. She felt _useless._ Like a part of her had been ripped out of her body and she could not breathe until she got it back.

 _Remember what it feels like. All of those times in school when you see him standing down the hall, and you cannot breathe until you're with him._ Allison’s words from a forever ago. Lydia couldn’t tell if that happened before or after she’d known _Stiles_ was the person who let her breathe.

“She’s a flesh and blood woman. She’s real. Everything else here is just... Is just speculation. Conjecture. It’s just... It’s a theory based on a ghost town.” Noah argued but the words were blocked out as Lydia noticed a chair pop up behind Stiles’ dad. A chair with a lacrosse jersey on it, the number 24 on its back and a lacrosse helmet, both in the colour of the Beacon Hills high school’s team.

Lydia felt Noah’s gaze on her as she slowly approached the jersey, tiptoeing towards it like she was afraid. And perhaps she was. Truly afraid of it all being another hallucination.

Even though she’d _talked_ to Stiles through the radio, Lydia still feared she’d made it all up.

But as soon as Lydia’s fingers brushed against the fabric, she knew he wasn’t imaginary.

A single touch.

A single touch was all it took to feel safe once again.

And when Lydia tenderly moved the jersey to her nose, the familiar yet distant scent resurfaced memories of him she had completely forgotten about. Memories of Stiles. Memories of _her_ Stiles.

> _Lacrosse game, sophomore year. Players sent off the field one by one. Home team losing. No hope left. The coach approaching Stiles on the bench. Him getting up excitedly, sneaking a glance to the crowd where his dad and Lydia sat beside each other. Lydia smiling back at him. Stiles running off onto the field. Failing at first. Then scoring a goal. The whole crowd standing up and cheering. Lydia jumping from her seat, too, and yelling out Stiles’ name. Another goal. Another. Stiles making the winning shot. Lydia clapping as hard as she could, smiling brightly as Stiles turned around to stare at her. Lights turning off. Chaos. Screams. A body on the field. Jackson._
> 
> _Knocking on Stiles' house’s door, tears streaming down Lydia’s cheeks. His dad letting her in, giving his condolences. Walking up the stairs to Stiles’ bedroom, knocking lightly. Stiles inviting her in after a moment of confusion, passing her a roll of toilet paper as she sat on his bed. His face covered in blood and bruises. Talking about Jackson. Discussing mortality. Wondering what happened. The tears only seemed to stop when Lydia noticed a pile of stuff in the corner of Stiles’ room - gifts he was considering giving to Lydia on her birthday. Loving warmth heating up her cheeks for the first time since the game._
> 
> _Crying in the car with a window rolled down during another lacrosse game, a few weeks earlier. Jackson had called her a waste of space. A nobody. Someone running up to the door of her car. Someone - Stiles. Lydia pushing the bottom to close her window. Stiles telling her she looked beautiful even when she cries. Pushing the window back down but not for long - Stiles disappeared and never returned._
> 
> _The day Allison arrived in Beacon Hills. The day of the lacrosse tryouts. Scott defending every ball thrown at the goal. A silly boy on a bench cheering awkwardly. Not just a silly boy - Stiles, the boy who sits behind her in biology. Lydia looking over at him, cringing as she cheers for Scott herself._
> 
> _Winter formal. Lights flashing on the lacrosse field. Peter approaching Lydia from across the field while Stiles, her date for the night, sprinted in her direction, screaming her name. Hospitals. So many hospital visits. Scott telling Lydia that Stiles had spent the entire weekend by her hospital room after Peter’s attack. Another, much dimmer hospital, with stone walls and drills and screams and blood. Stiles holding her hand as he attempted to remember her math homework. Stiles wrapping her arms around her chest to save her from the dread doctors. Blood streaming from Stiles’ ear in the backseat of his Jeep. Stiles’ voice bringing her back to the hard desk in the animal clinic. Stiles helping her heal with the touch of his hands while her neck is cut wide open and she’s lost her voice. Stiles in every moment she remembers she needed someone the most._
> 
> _Mexico. End of junior year. Joking around with Stiles in yet another life threatening situation. Acting like a couple of business partners around a werewolf hunter. Stiles’ Jeep breaking down in the middle of the desert. Helping him with the tools and trying to ease their panic with sarcasm. Malia and Kira getting hurt in a berserker attack. Continuing the drive with a car now partially fixed and listening to Stiles and Malia argue and Malia admitting she only cared about Stiles. Jealousy creeping in at the sight of their hands intertwined around the stick shift._
> 
> _Screaming into a passed-out Stiles as Lydia felt her best friend dying from a cut of an oni sword. Carrying a fragile Stiles into the nogitsune illusion not even 24 hours later. Keeping her arms around him until the very end, when it was Lydia’s time to be held at the sight of Aiden’s dead body._
> 
> _Stiles jumping from the bear trap with his arms around her chest. Lydia smiling up at him when he told her she was smart during the dance. Stiles visiting her while Lydia was high on medicine after Peter’s film store attack. Ice skating across an empty hall with hands connected for the first time. Staring at each other with a red string between them and Lydia realizing she’s in love with him. Breaths heavy, fingers trembling in Stiles’ Jeep just seconds before Stiles was erased._
> 
> _“Remember I love you.”_

With every new memory overwhelming Lydia’s mind, she could no longer handle it. Before moving Stiles’ jersey from her nose, she let a teardrop fall on the fabric and turned around quickly.

Noah stood frozen with an apologetic look spread across his face. He looked _so_ sorry for her.

“You don’t see anything?” Lydia’s tone was hopeless as she held onto the jersey with both her hands. 

Noah didn’t hesitate, every word cutting like a blade. “I see a deeply disturbed young woman.”

Lydia was now certain that wasn’t who she is, not anymore. In fact, she believed in herself for what could be the first time, _knowing_ Stiles is real and she _is_ right.

“You’re afraid to remember him because you’re afraid of what it means.” Lydia’s voice was breaking with every syllable.

“Why do you care so much if I remember him?” Noah spat out, angrier by the second.

“Because you loved him.” 

Because you loved him, _too._ Because if it weren’t for Stiles, Noah wouldn’t be alive. If it weren’t for Stiles, Lydia would’ve been long dead. If it weren’t for him, Lydia would’ve never known what love is.

So she threw the jersey across the room in the direction of Noah, hoping with every fibre in her body that he believed enough. He believed in his son like Lydia hoped Stiles believed in her to bring him back.

And the second Noah caught it, in the puddle forming in his eyes as he studied the jersey, she could see that he believed.

* * *

The following time Lydia entered Stiles’ room was on the night of his return and the defeat of the ghost riders.

In silence, Lydia carefully walked in after Stiles, who hesitated just the same. Despite time passing differently in the hunt, Stiles had still known that he’d been erased a long time and he’d felt homesick. And even in the very room where he’d experienced nightmare-filled nights and panicking, at this very moment, he felt safe and sound.

“Strange being here. I’d expected to never get out of that damn train station.” Stiles confessed, lying down flat on his bed with arms spread across the sheets and sighing out a breath of relief.

“You believed in us that little?” Lydia teased him, unsure whether she could lie next to him just yet so she continued standing in the middle of his room, nervously biting her bottom lip.

“No one ever escaped the hunt alive before, did they?” his eyes were shut now and he looked almost peaceful with a grin tugging at his cheeks. “Of course, I believed in you guys.” Lydia dedicated an unconvinced look in his direction and even though Stiles couldn’t see it, he felt it. “Maybe not Scott, though, he’s too sceptical. Malia would need hard proof... Scratch that, I only believed in you, Lydia.”

“Thanks. But don’t underestimate them, they _did_ help to bring you back.”

Stiles opened his eyes, noticing Lydia standing still and immediately scooted to one side of his bed, sitting up. Lydia approached the bed hesitantly. Even though Stiles had ensured he didn’t need space, he was still fragile from the hunt and so was she from the past three months. Lydia didn’t want to rush something so important. Yet she flumped on the bed anyway, crossing her legs only inches away from Stiles’.

“How _did_ you bring me back?” he homed in on Lydia’s face, studying every part he hadn’t in months. They were never this close when having a partially normal conversation. “I only remember hearing your voice and then I ended up in the driver’s seat of my Jeep.” 

“What was I saying?” curiosity crept into Lydia’s breathy voice. She was so exhausted yet incredibly happy to finally face Stiles.

Seeing him in the locker room only hours ago felt like the first time in many ways. But despite having to re-remember his jokes, his confessions, his role in her life, and falling in love with him the second time, Lydia couldn’t hesitate, not then. Not after remembering _why_ many months ago in the very same room, she kissed him and how she could never tell him that their kiss changed everything. Now that she remembered how many opportunities there were, she couldn’t allow herself to keep missing out.

“Uh..” Stiles wavered, breaking their eye contact shyly. “Something about, uh, kissing me.”

That wasn’t what Lydia had expected. “Right.” her cheeks turned hot as she looked away from Stiles the same way he had.

Yet his gaze fixed back on her face, a half-grin across his own. “You’re cute when you get shy.”

Lydia scoffed. “You have a lot of balls when you return from a three-month vacation in a different dimension.”

“Listen, it’s not like we had a party down there.” His grin remained but some sadness crept into it and Lydia’s brain got captured by guilt. 

“I know, I’m sorry.” she grabbed his hand automatically, startling Stiles a little. “I’m happy you’re back.”

“So.. Why’d you say it?” Stiles asked quietly, staring down at their intertwined fingers.

“Say what?” Lydia pretended she hadn’t a clue about what he meant just to give her more time to say what she was about to say next.

“About kissing me.”

“I swear, you came back a different person if you can actually communicate with me about this.” she hesitated a little longer with a nervous smile.

But Stiles' expressions revealed that this was no time for messing around. He wanted answers. And after 2 years spent without properly communicating while being each other’s closest friend, he deserved to know.

“Why’d you say it, Lyds?” his voice broke into a whisper while Lydia suddenly remembered her last conversation with Kira.

> _Lydia and Kira sat in the backseat of Stiles’ Jeep while the rest of the pack had left to grab snacks for their ride to Mexico to bring Kira back to the skinwalkers._
> 
> _“It really isn’t that hard, Lydia.” Kira couldn’t let go of the topic for the whole time Stiles, Scott and Malia were gone. “Just tell him. Did it change anything when he said he liked you?”_
> 
> _“That was different. That was so long ago. We were kids but now.. Now we’ve had a life, a life in which we actually mattered.. And we grew up. He said he liked me. But I love him. That’s different.” Lydia’s eyes watered as she came to the realization that they were really no longer kids. With the trauma for a lifetime, Lydia had felt herself grow up quicker. Grow a thicker skin. Harden her soul._
> 
> _Perhaps what she loved most about Stiles was that with him around, all the hardship seemed not so difficult anymore._
> 
> _“There is nothing holding you back. He’s not even with Malia anymore and he’s been all over you since they broke up.” Kira insisted, glancing at the front seat. “Like just now. He spent five whole minutes arguing with Scott on the kind of crisps they’re getting because sour cream pringles are your favourite but theirs is BBQ’s.”_
> 
> _“I don’t know.” Lydia sighed. “It’s just not the right time.”_
> 
> _“By the time I’m back, you better have found it.”_

Lydia was finally ready. And she had been, since before Stiles was taken when _he_ had told her he loved her. Or, that is, _still_ did.

“Because I figured it out then. You know..” she shut her eyes slightly but then managed to make eye contact with Stiles, who stared at her wonderstruck. “That I love you.”

Stiles’ mouth fell open slightly and with eyes fluttering, he looked away. With the loss of his gaze on her, a part of Lydia was paranoid. Did he expect her to say it in different circumstances? Did he not want her to say it at all?

“Sorry.” his gaze returned, more loving than ever before. “It’s just strange hearing that from you the first time.” he squeezed her hand tighter.

Lydia couldn’t stop the smile that was growing so widely across her cheeks. “Didn’t you know?” 

“Not for sure. You’ve always been quite a mystery, Lydia.” Stiles confessed, grinning back.

“Allison knew, that’s why she-” Lydia couldn’t finish her thought, eyes watering with memories of her. “Kira knew. Scott knew. I think Malia knew it, too. She didn’t like me very much at first.”

“She didn’t like anyone at first.”

Lydia nodded; he’d made quite a good point. “I’m happy she does now, though. I’m proud of her for everything. It wasn’t an easy transition.”

“How about you? Was it... Easy?” Stiles played with her fingers as he spoke, sending electricity through Lydia’s skin.

Lydia scoffed again. _Easy_ didn’t belong in her vocabulary.

“The part where I realized I’m a second too late and you’d already fallen in love with someone else or the part where you were erased from our universe for several months and I had absolutely no idea why I felt like I could no longer breathe because of the hole in my chest?” Lydia rambled, watching Stiles’ smile fade and frown grow bigger by the second.

“Another part.” he _hoped_.

“Nothing was easy.” Lydia half-smiled, easing into Stiles’ consistent touch on her fingers. Getting used to it. “Loving you is pretty hard when I’m too afraid of figuring you out.”

“You can tell me anything now. There’s nothing holding you back once you say it.”

“I suppose so.” she agreed.

Lydia couldn’t tell when, but Stiles had scooted over to her, so close she could feel his shuddery breath on her skin like a warm welcome. Like safety. Like home.

“It’s been difficult holding back from _you._ Always. _”_ he talked more slowly now, voice thick of anticipation.

Yet Lydia needed confirmation first. A promise.

“It won’t be that easy. There are ground rules.”

Stiles' eyes lit on fire but he didn’t speak angrily. “Rules? Lydia, I just spent half my life being in love with you and you’re setting up a whole rulebook now?”

“Not a book.” she laughed. “Just one rule.” 

“What is it?” curiosity crept into his voice, now tender.

There was only one thing Lydia really wanted after knowing how it’s like to lose Stiles, the one person who’d always made her feel included and mattered.

“Please don’t ever leave me again.” her eyes were watery when she looked down, remembering how the hole in her chest had hurt for every moment in the past couple months. After every cut she’d had to seal shut, that ache was like no other.

Stiles moved a finger to her eyes and picked her head up, brushing the tear away and holding her cheek softly. Lydia looked back up, seeing his face only inches from her. Staring at her as in asking for permission. Yet he didn’t need one.

Lydia closed the distance between their lips, kissing him for the second time that night but the only adrenaline she faced now was the joy of finally being close to the person she loved, in the room that was no longer a wreck made out of the remains of a boy who once possessed it, not out of fear of being separated by another nightmare again.

Heat rose from their stomachs which ached from long-awaited peacefulness in just being able to be normal, even if it were for only a moment and soon they’d return back to chaos and misery.

What Lydia knew, however, is that she would never feel unsafe with Stiles by her side. The months apart proved what she’d already guessed. He was her safe place and Lydia believed she was his, too.

As they kissed into the night, wrapping bodies around each other’s and sighing of happiness into each other’s mouths, and smiling and laughing and breaking every rule set since entering each other’s lives, Stiles whispered

“Never again.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!
> 
> it's my first week of uni but i so happen to be in iso bc f*ck ms rona but doing creative writing (and film) so far has been amazing! it's a lot of work so i don't know when i'll be uploading a one shot next time but perhaps my writing will have a big glow up by then! also, today in my seminar i talked about writing stories based on tv shows and no one judged me :D
> 
> sincerely @piinofs on twitter


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